IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume VI: The Rift
Chapter 31 Penance
Tuesday, January 19, 2709 Kiril keeps an eye on me as
we stumble through this pallid stretch of the Canyonlands. I don’t have any heart for the
greenfire. It just seems wrong to let it
rob me of my feelings when Tanjin’s body lies withering under stones. I shove on without it as a punishment for all
my sins, maybe his sins, too, though I don’t know of anything he ever did
compared to me. But when I stumble to a
halt Kiril puts the leaf between my lips, herself. So my feet push hard
against the sloping ground and keep on marching, but I’m not here, I till the
soil on a little patch of farm with Tanjin in some sheltered valley, far from
all the politics, kindly land with a brook chuckling through it that gives us
just enough of everything we need. The
hay smells sweet in the morning sun, and the orchard drips with fruit. Oh, I make commands back in the world of grit
and blood, I choose directions, and a part of me scans for danger across a
stone landscape where a bird can scarcely find a mouthful fit to peck, but
another self laughs beside the summer harvest table, wiping squash-pie off the
chin of our giggling baby girl. “I’m all right,” I tell
Kiril, the next time I catch her sidelong glances. You can relax, I want to tell
her. You can be a little girl for
awhile. Instead I just say, “I’ve
lost friends before.” “They weren’t Tanjin,” she
says, and squeezes my hand. And I cannot
help but nod. Daba’oth walks nearby. I didn’t expect to see the sympathy in his
eyes. “The Dead march with us,” he says
softly. “Always.” Lufti holds my hand on the other side,
sometimes peering fearfully around me, but on this much at least the two
concur. But I don’t want Tanjin
wafting about me as a ghost! I want his
arms around me, the soft-hard muscular one and the stiff little stick one, that
embrace unique to him that I only felt in brief hugs now and then. I want to taste his tongue in my mouth. I want to let him in where I never let in
anyone before. Maybe it would never have
happened, had he lived. But now I know
for sure that it never will. The pace gets easier. We won’t have to worry about the Charadocian
Army for a day or two at least. Blamed
poor tactics, if you ask me–what were their officers thinking? After our noon meal Lufti
takes the lead, and I let him, though now Kiril frankly stares at me with
skepticism about my sanity. About
mid-afternoon I order everyone to give the greenfire a rest. By twilight Lufti leads us stumbling down
into an ever-narrowing canyon, a deep crack in a surprising upthrust of white
marble. Dabao’oth stares in wonder
at the faintly translucent stone to either side of us, appearing luminescent in
the sun’s last light. “I will remember
this place,” he says, running his fingers along the rock. “I will come back. I will build with this.” All very beautiful, yes, but sepulchral, too.
I wish I’d had this to hand for Tanjin’s cairn; it seems wrong for us to sleep
within its sad, pale splendor and not him. For sleep we will, tonight,
nor even set a guard. Because Lufti,
budding oracle that he is, leads us even deeper, into a bare crack of stone
roofed over by overhanging shrubs high above our heads, soft at the floor with
ages of their litter, narrowing till it becomes too dark always for anything to
grow down here. So on this musty cushion
we lay down, head to foot in a long train of weary warriors, with Honeydew at
the open end. If anybody comes at us,
they must shoot the donkey first in this tight space, and his braying will wake
the rest of us in time. Or maybe
not. Maybe I for one will never wake
again. And maybe I won’t mind. I walk barefoot through a bloody battlefield; the ground squishes
underneath my feet, and the air smells like a butcher-shop. My shoulders ache and sting. At first I think
I bear those horrid wings again even as I walk upon the ground, grinding down
on me, breaking down my back. Yet
gradually I become aware of my own motions, the swing of my arms, up over left
shoulder, up over right shoulder, up over left, and on and on, until I realize
that I flagellate myself, and all the blood around me, all the blood that ever
spilled, is mine. I wake to Lufti wiping the
tears from my face. Then he snuggles
down against me and we fall asleep again. (We wake in the boat at the same time, Jake and I. Then I hear stirring beyond the thin
partition between our cabin and the one that George and Wallace share. We totter into the mess-hall as one, Don
joining us from the captain’s cabin.
Wallace’s thin hair sticks up every which way and George’s forelock
hangs in his eyes. I suppose I must look
every bit as disheveled. I mix up some
powdered milk, cocoa and sugar while Jake sets the water heating. Wallace rubs his shoulders.
“Dreadful nightmare, but I suppose the unaccustomed labors brought it on.” George stares at him. “Did
you dream of...of lashing yourself?” “Yes,” he husks, and shudders.
“Penance.” “Was there...” “Blood,” says Jake, and pours the hot water into my powdered
mixture. George stares off into nothing.
“So much blood! And then his eyes turn to his own hands, and
won’t leave. I say it for the others.
“We all had the same dream.”) Just another dream, fading
fast. Was I on a boat or hidden in an
army tent? But the blood was real. The blood is truth. And so is the sting of my infected scrapes,
where my face sinks into the pack I use for a pillow. I heal so much more slowly than I used to. (Sting. Sting. Sting.
Sting. The rhythm continues. Swing over the left shoulder, then the right
shoulder, then the left shoulder, then the right, so that it almost drowns out
the pain of gripping thorns with both hands. Because I deserve this.
Because I cheated on Merrill before he ever cheated on me. Because I tormented him for agreeing with my
own decision to betray my father and blaspheme against my faith. Because I never wanted to face the Truth of
what I did. Because hurt is real and
hurting makes my penitence feel real.
Because... ...real? Oh Gates I’m not
dreaming this! I throw the bloody branch
away from me, black and red against the snow, I feel the fire in my shoulders
and back and the ice wind biting into my bared breasts and the shivering builds
until it borders on the convulsive. Can’t afford that, darling.
I have no medicine. I close my eyes tightly, pulling my clothes back up and savoring
the sudden warmth, barely in time it feels like. I will pull them back down to put on salve in
a minute—right now warmth has become my top priority... ...No, one other takes precedence.
Because I still hear the rhythmical whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. I open my eyes and see people all around me
in the latest camp, all flagellating themselves with branches, belts, purses, ropes,
wires, at least one string of pearls, all of them naked from the waist up. A child falls into the snow, her back
streaked red and her lips turning blue.
I run to her, pull her up into my arms and shout, “Stop! Stop!
All of you!” I pull the coat back up over the little girl and hold her in my
arms, concentrating as hard as I can on Darvinia, my vacation there, luxuriating
with Merrill in a warm bubble-bath silky with oils and minerals, the scent of
lavender and calendula in the water.
Pleasure, I project.
Pleasure. Think of Merrill
putting the chocolate into my mouth, laughing throatily. He forgave me and I forgave him, and my
father, I am sure, forgave us both. People around me sigh and the whooshing stops. I open my eyes to others suddenly opening
theirs, confused, covering themselves.
“I don’t have chocolate,” I say loudly, “But I do have a big box of raisins
that I found yesterday—that’s as good as candy.
Come on over and share.” As they
turn towards me, yearning and horror and shame in their faces, I say, more
quietly, “I also have salve. I think we
can all use it. And we all saw each
other, just now, so there’s no point in being modest, is there?” Two men start a fire going, and some women gather up the bloody
branches to burn in it. I get someone to
treat my back, and then start taking care of everybody else, each in turn. And we each get a handful of raisins. I savor the sweet, dark flavor, thinking of far-off sunny
vineyards where they grew. I enjoy the
very act of chewing them, and the burst of energy in my blood, and the act of
being alive. And why not pleasure,
wherever we can find it? It’s as true as
anything else. Flagellation doesn’t do a
lick of good—only Lovequest makes amends. The little girl says, “I had a bad dream, Mommy,” and starts to
weep against me. “We all did, dear. But
we’re awake now, and we can make things better.”) |
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